Harlem Artists Guild, 321 W 136Th 18 New York Amsterdam News (Office in 1930S), 2293 7Th Ave
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1 harlem’s artistic community in the 1930s Not to know the Negro on the group and historical level is to rob him of his rightful share in the American h e r i t a g e . j. saunders redding, On Being Negro in America (1951) early student years only by dingy areaway entrances to the littered backyard about which the rectangle of tenements had been built. Sometime during 1930 Rosalee Lawrence brought her Half of all the tenants are on relief and pass their days and children, Jacob and his younger siblings William and Ger- nights lolling in the dreary entrances of the 40 apartments aldine, from their foster homes in Philadelphia to live with which house them or sitting in the ten by fifteen foot rooms her at 142 West 143rd Street in New York’s Harlem. Jacob which many of them share with a luckless friend or two. Un- was either twelve years old or thirteen, the age he turned less they are fortunate their single windows face on narrow on September 7, 1930.1 courts or into a neighbor’s kitchen and the smell of cooking Harlem, an area north of Central Park, had originally and the jangle of a dozen radios is always in the air.3 been populated by German Americans, who built elegant brownstone townhouses but then left when African Amer- Harlem, much larger and more densely crowded than icans began to expand into the area in the early twentieth Philadelphia, opened the eyes of the impressionable century.2 By the early 1930s many of the brownstones young Lawrence (Map 1). had been converted into one- or two-room kitchenettes Five years before Lawrence arrived, in 1925, the writer to accommodate the burgeoning population. The city and educator James Weldon Johnson had spelled out block Lawrence lived on—142nd Street to 143rd Street, Harlem’s special qualities from an insider’s point of view, bordered by Lenox and Seventh Avenues—was described in sharp contrast to the New York Herald Tribune report- in a New York Herald Tribune article in 1934 as er’s account: tenanted exclusively by Negroes. On its four sides the area Harlem is indeed the great Mecca for the sight-seer, the presents a front of gray and red brick fire escapes broken pleasure-seeker, the curious, the adventurous, the enterprising, FIG 1 Jacob Lawrence at work on a Frederick Douglass series panel, c. 1939. Photo: Kenneth F. Space, U.S. National Archives and Records Administration, Harmon Foundation Collection. 1p.Hills_Painting Harlem Modern.indd 8-9 8/14/09 5:31:53 PM the ambitious and the talented of the whole Negro world. Lawrence was fortunate to meet Alston (Fig. 4). At W 147 St 1 Harlem is not merely a Negro colony or community, it is a city Columbia Alston had been briefly enrolled in a pre-archi- —Bad break Please advise within a city, the greatest Negro city in the world. It is not a tecture course but switched to the liberal arts curriculum BH/ICS W 145 St e slum or a fringe, it is located in the heart of Manhattan and 8 e and graduated in 1929. He spent at least a year teaching N 4 Av Bradhurst occupies one of the most beautiful and healthful sections of at Utopia House in the arts and crafts program originally Convent Ave Convent 2 H the city. It is not a ‘quarter’ of dilapidated tenements, but is Av combe combe W 143 St A 3 R set up by James Wells, also a Columbia graduate (class L made up of new-law apartments and handsome dwellings, with E 9 Edge M of 1925). Alston returned to Columbia after a year or two St Nicholas Nicholas St R Hamiton Terr Hamiton well-paved and well-lighted streets. It has its own churches, 5 I 10 W 141 St V to complete a master’s degree at Teachers College. E R social and civic centers, shops, theaters and other places of In interviews during the 1960s Alston recalled the cir- amusement. And it contains more Negroes to the square mile than any other spot on earth. A stranger who rides up mag- cumstances of his first encounter with Lawrence and his nificent Seventh Avenue on a bus or in an automobile must be determination to let his pupil’s innate talent develop. To City W 138 St College 6 Edgecombe Ave Edgecombe 7 struck with surprise at the transformation which takes place Harlan Phillips, he remarked: W 137 St SSt.t. after he crosses One Hundred and Twenty-Fifth Street. Begin- Nicholas 9 HARLEM Amsterdam Ave Amsterdam W 136 St PParkark HOSPITAL ning there, the population suddenly darkens and he rides I took a job as a director of a boys’ club in a slum area in Har- 8 11 10 W 135 St through twenty-five solid blocks where the passers-by, the 12 lem. It was a very small operation. You had kids of ages— W 134 St shoppers, those sitting in restaurants, coming out of theaters, five to 16, 17—which made it very hard to develop a pro- 18 standing in doorways and looking out of windows are practi- e gram. Among the kids that I had was . Jacob Lawrence. Av cally all Negroes.4 This kid was not the usual mischievous, hell-raising kid. nt nt ve Jake . had this very curious vision that just fascinated me. Con If I gave him crayons or whatever materials were available, W 130 St Like Johnson, young Lawrence was attracted to the magic 13 there was always a very personal, strange kind of expression. of Harlem’s beauty and vitality, with neighbors and strang- St Nicholas Terr Nicholas St I don’t think at that time he had ever seen African masks or ers moving past each other through the spaces of stoops, St Nicholas Ave Nicholas St 5th Ave anything like that, but he used to do these fantastic masks . Madison Ave Madison sidewalks, and streets. Lawrence would later say, in a W 127 St in brilliant colors. I kept him supplied with things and sensed 8th Ave (Frederick Douglass Blvd) Douglass (Frederick 8th Ave 14 Ave Park Lexington Ave Lexington remark familiar to his interviewers: “It was a very cohesive W 126 St Blvd) X (Malcolm Ave Lenox even that early . that this was a kid to leave alone. Don’t let 15 Ave) Jr. Powell Clayton (Adam 7th Ave 17 community. You knew people. You didn’t know their him start painting like you, don’t start cramming him with W 125 St 16 19 names, but you’d pass people on the street and see the classical ideas about art.11 20 face[s] over and over again. It was that kind of a com- St Nicholas W 123 St MounMountt munity. It was a very vital, exciting community. At least it To another interviewer, Albert Murray, Alston added, “He Morris Morningside Ave Morningside PParkark was for me, and from what I hear from many other people didn’t work like the other kids. He knew pretty definitely MorningsideMorningside Av my age[.] [Y]ou knew the police, you knew the firemen, what he wanted to do and it didn’t relate to the typical PParkark e Manhattan Ave Manhattan W 119 St you knew the teachers, the people on the street. You knew kind of thing that children of that age do. I’m glad I had the peddlers. That’s what it was for me” (Figs. 2 and 3). the sense at that time to realize that this kid had a very Central Harlem, ca. 1930s–1940s. Rosalee Lawrence, sometime after her children arrived unusual, unique kind of talent, and a way of seeing things. East/west blocks increase by 100 numbers per block. in Harlem, enrolled them in arts and crafts classes at the I wouldn’t even let him watch me paint. And I tried my Walking north or south along the avenues takes about 20 minutes to cover 20 blocks. after-school program of Utopia Children’s House, located best just to protect this very unique quality in Jake.”12 Mount Morris Park is now Marcus Garvey Park. at 170 West 130th Street, in Central Harlem. Founded in At Utopia House, Lawrence was introduced to soap 1 Lawrence’s temporary home in 1940, 292 W 147th 11 Old Harlem YMCA, 181 W 135th 1927 by Daisy C. Reed, its first director, and other social carving, metalwork, woodwork, and painting. Painting 2 Augusta Savage’s first studio, 163 W 143rd 12 New Harlem YMCA (built in 1930s), 180 W 135th progressives in Harlem, Utopia Children’s House provided particularly appealed to Lawrence; to Elton Fax he re- 3 Lawrence’s first Harlem address, 1930, 142 W 143rd 13 Utopia House, 170 W 130th activities and free lunches for the children of working called his early attempts at making art unencumbered by 4 Lawrences’ home, 1942–43, 72 Hamilton Terr. 14 Langston Hughes’s home, 20 E 127th 6 5 “306” Alston/Bannarn Studio, 306 W 141st 15 Braddock Hotel, site of 1943 Harlem Riot, 272 W 126th mothers. Jacob took lessons from the Harlem artist rules and academic protocols: “My first paintings con- 6 Abyssinian Baptist Church, 136–42 W 138th 16 Lawrence’s studio in 1940, 33 W 125th Charles Alston, a recent graduate of Columbia College, sisted of geometric designs, done from my imagination, 7 Ethiopian School of Research (Charles Seifert), 313 W 137th 17 Apollo Theater, 253 W 125th walking each day the brief distance to Utopia House from with poster paints on paper.